No-poo, AKA Homemade Shampoo!

What we need to keep our hair clean, soft, and shiny is soap. The end. But if you use shampoo, what you're doing is stripping your hair's natural oils, which creates a need for conditioner, which makes your hair limp and greasy, which creates a need for more shampoo... and on and on. It's the ideal situation for advertisers!

Add to that the fact that shampoo, even the fancy salon brands and many organic formulations, contains sodium lauryl/laureth sulfate (an industrial surfactant used to de-grease engines -- it's also an irritant that has been rumored to cause everything from skin lesions to cancer), and you too might be motivated to switch to a more gentle, natural product to suds your locks!

Because shampoo strips the natural oils from your hair, it causes your scalp's sebaceous (oil-producing) glands to go into overdrive to keep your hair moisturized -- that's why people like me have to wash their hair every. single. day. to keep from looking like, say, Amy Winehouse after a three-day bender. So when you go "no-poo," your scalp will probably have a little adjustment period while it figures out how to regulate, after which you'll find yourself going longer between shampooing. It took my hair maybe 4 washes to get jiving.

Here's the skinny on how to make a simple, crazy cheap "no-poo" that gets the job done and leaves your hair soft and healthy. (Thanks to Ivory and T.L. over at my FAVORITE blog ever, Little House in the Suburbs, for this awesome technique which I tweaked.)

Grate a bar of plain soap (like Ivory or homemade soap) without added glycerine and put it in your blender. Add a couple tablespoons of olive oil* and about 1/2 cup warm water**. Blend, dribbling more water in a bit at a time until the mixture looks like thin pudding. Weird, I know, but that's what it looks like! Scrape the sides of the mixer down and blend again, adding any essential oils you like. I added lemon oil, tea tree oil, and wintergreen oil. Funnel into your shampoo bottle and you're done. It should be thinner than normal shampoo -- it will thicken slightly as it sits, and you want to be able to get it out of the bottle!

Then make a scalp-soothing conditioning rinse that will also de-tangle and smooth your hair. Mix 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar and four cups of water in your old conditioner bottle or another bottle with a cap or a squirt-top.

Now. The use of this stuff is a leeetle bit different than normal shampoo and conditioner. Scrub up like normal shampoo, but when you rinse, really rinse well, until your hair squeaks when you run your hand down it. (I was VERY worried at this point, y'all. My hair felt WEIRD. But hang in there, ok?) Saturate your hair with the vinegar rinse, making sure you get all your hair, even the underside!***

Give it a good rinse, and you're ready to go! Smooth, soft hair with no chemicals!

It helps in the first few days if you give your hair a good once-over with a natural bristle brush a couple times in between washings -- it distributes the natural oils down the hair shaft, which is a GOOD thing! And even though my hair was weird and a little oily the first few days, it was never as greasy as it used to be when I skipped a shampoo (or two, God forbid).

I love this stuff, you guys. I'd totally encourage you to break the shampoo-conditioner cycle and give no-poo a shot.





* I eliminated this, because it was making my hair (not scalp) oily. If you have really dry hair, you can leave it in. I use the remaining, oil-containing stuff as body wash and it's amazing.
** Blondes can substitute brewed chamomile tea, brunettes can substitute brewed black tea, for all the water in this recipe.
*** This is the point at which my fears began to subside. Oh, it feels like hair again! I can do this! And don't worry. It's not going to make you smell like a pickle!

Yes. You Can. No, Really. You can make this bread. Quit arguing and just go to the kitchen, okay?

If any of you has the slightest foodie inclination, you probably already know about the no-knead bread sensation that swept the internet a few years ago. It began when Mark Bittman, the New York Times' "Minimalist", finagled the recipe out of Jim Lahey, a NYC baker. It's never really gone away; variations pop up periodically as people experiment and rediscover the thrill of triumphing over the daunting task of bread-baking. Alton Brown has a version. Cook's Illustrated did one. Jaques Pepin made a take on it on his "Fast Food My Way" show. There was an NPR special on it. Whole books have been published on the subject. Some skeptics remain -- no-knead bread must be about culinary laziness; it requires expensive equipment; it takes too long; it's fussy.

Au contraire, my friends; the no-knead technique is a most forgiving and obliging one, one that results in an end product greater than the sum of its parts and much greater than the amount of required labor would suggest.

In other words, it's dead simple, and it makes great bread. So, without further ado, here's what you need to do RIGHT NOW. I mean it.

Take four cups of flour, and mix them with one teaspoon of sugar, two teaspoons of salt, a half teaspoon of instant yeast, and two cups of ice water. Keeping in mind variations in humidity and flour measurement, adjust the amount of liquid and flour so you have a sticky, shaggy mass of dough. It should be too soft to "stand up" but not soft enough to pour. Stir that vigorously for about ten seconds, cover and forget about it for about 18 hours.

Then give the mix a quick stir, cover it again and let it sit for about two hours, more or less. About a half-hour before you want to bake the bread, turn your oven to 450.

Put a baking vessel of some kind in the oven as it preheats. You can use a cast-iron skillet, a dutch oven, a fancy Le Creuset, a terra cotta planter, anything, as long as it's safe to heat it to 450 degrees when it's empty. If it's got a lid that's oven safe, great; preheat that too. If not, fill another oven-safe vessel with water and put it on the bottom rack while the oven preheats.*

When the dough is ready, have a spatula at the ready, pull out the baking vessel from the oven, scrape the dough into it, cover it if you've got a lid, and put it back into the oven. Let it bake for 55 minutes. If you're using a lidded vessel, take the lid off at this point and let bake for another 15-20 minutes. If you're not using a lidded vessel, cover the top of the loaf with foil to prevent over-browning and let bake for another 15-20 minutes.

Remove the loaf and let cool completely before slicing.



* Notes:

1. I use a 10-inch cast iron skillet, and fill my great big roaster pan with water. The key to this bread's crust and texture is steam. One of the reasons artisanal bakeries can make such great bread is that they often have multi-thousand-dollar steam ovens that create the necessary environment for the crackling crust they charge a premium for.
2. For the love of little green apples, don't underbake this bread! An 70-80 minutes is a LONG time compared with most home-baked bread, but it's completely necessary. The water content of the dough is extremely high, and if you don't bake it long enough, you'll wind up with a weird, gummy interior.
3. Once you've baked the original version, you'll find this bread to be infinitely adaptable. You can use a light-flavored lager in place of the cold water. You can use half rye flour and stir caraway seeds in. You can use honey in place of the sugar and half whole-wheat flour. You can add rolled oats or wheat germ. You can stir in sunflower seeds, millet, and pumpkin seeds just before the second rise. Or walnuts and dried cranberries. Or fresh rosemary and roasted garlic. Or... you get the idea.
4. The rise times aren't hard science. If you can't do 18 hours but you can do 14 or 16 or 20, great. If it's going to be more than a day until you can get to it again, it can sit in the fridge for up to 24 hours at any point in the process -- just think of it as the "pause" button.
5. If this isn't the best bread you've ever made at home, I will... be extremely surprised. It's so good, it's kind of magical. Do yourself a favor; get it started tonight.

I'm a Junkie

A green smoothie junkie, that is.

Sara (The Happy Foody) turned me on to the green smoothie concept, which is basically: get all your daily servings of fruits and vegetables in one go in a smoothie that tastes like dessert. Boost health! Get shiny hair! Improve digestion! Fight free radicals! Sounds good to me, you know?

So several weeks ago I started with a parsley-blueberry-apple smoothie, thinned with plain water. It tasted so clean and fresh and delicious that I kept right on, making another one each day. I love strawberries, so I started adding those, and oranges, and bananas (which I HATE, but I wanted something smooth and creamy-textured). I felt incredibly healthy and awake and great after just a few days. And then something awful happened. I ran out of greens, and had to go like three days without a green smoothie. It was terrible. Terrible!!

I finally got some more greens (2 pounds of organic spinach, which is like half a bushel, no lie -- it's a HUGE amount) and a bunch of other stuff, and made a green smoothie first thing when I came home from the store. It was a total revelation, and let me tell you why:

I've been trying to figure out a way to get myself to eat avocado. The texture massively squicks me out, and the flavor isn't my favorite either, so despite the fact that I know avocados are one of the healthiest foods you can possibly eat, I just haven't been able to get over my general feeling of yuckiness toward them. But I thought to myself, "They don't have a very strong flavor... and they're definitely creamy... what if I used them instead of banana in my green smoothies?" Best idea I've ever had. Seriously. So here's what was in that smoothie (and, uh, pretty much all my smoothies since then):

2 kiwis
1/2 a medium avocado
3 huge handfuls baby spinach
2 or 3 big handfuls mixed frozen fruit (includes strawberries, mango, pineapple, and peaches)
1 t. raw local honey
enough water to blend

I don't know if I can describe how good this smoothie is. It might sound strange, but it tastes like an umbrella drink you'd sip by the pool in Cabo, y'all. The pineapple and mango come right to the front -- if your eyes were closed I guarantee you'd never guess it had anything remotely vegetable-related in it.

I'm planning on doing a detox/cleanse with the green smoothies sometime in April. Has anyone else done one like it? I want to make sure I'm getting all the nutrition I need. Can anybody see gaps that I'll need to fill, if I'm having smoothies like the one above? Let me know.

Head over to Happy Foody and take the Green Smoothie Challenge, why dontcha?

Making Your Own EVERYTHING

A friend asked me a few days ago, "So, Laura, is there anything you're not making right now?" And the answer to that is pretty much no. Here's what's on the list:

Toothpaste: Thanks to "Seeking the Old Paths" for this awesome recipe. Super-simple, too. I tweaked it a bit -- equal parts coconut oil and baking soda, plus spearmint oil and tea tree oil for flavor, and xylitol (a non-nutritive sugar alcohol that the bacteria in your mouth can't use) for sweetness. I'm putting it in a little half-pint glass jar and just dipping my toothbrush into it. It's a little salty-tasting but I like the creaminess of the coconut oil. It's nice, and let me tell you, my teeth are insanely clean-feeling when I use it!

Shampoo and "conditioner": inspired by, who else, but Little House in the Suburbs. The shampoo is just soap and water, blended up with olive oil and some essential oils. The conditioner is a mix of apple cider vinegar and water in a squirt bottle. I'll let you know how these work when I run out of my regular stuff.

Basil-rosemary sugar scrub: another Little House recipe. Mine wound up being about 1/4 cup powdered herbs, 1 cup sugar, 3/4 cup olive oil, and 30 drops or so of tea tree oil. Can you tell I'm obsessed with the tea tree oil? I just found a great price for it online, too. Fab. Just used the scrub on my face and it feels amazingly smooth and not the least bit greasy. I'm already in love.

Anti-perspirant/deodorant: Yes, I'm totally serious. Yet another Little House concoction, made all the more brilliant by the fact that you put it in your old deodorant container. Luuuurrrve this idea -- cramming aluminum in my pores day after day kinda freaks me out, honestly, so I'm stoked about not having to use commercial deo anymore. It's just baking soda, cornstarch, anti-bac essential oils (geranium, tea tree, etc.), and some coconut oil. Easy-peasy.

Plus, I'm using coconut oil for face moisturizer (I have combination skin that's pretty blemish-prone, and it works beautifully for me), and making my own soap is on the horizon.

Man, I just love NOT having to buy stuff. Saving money, AND cutting chemicals out of my life at the same time? Yes, please!

Thrifty Linkage!

OK, darlins. Lately I've been obsessively trawling Ye Olde Intertoobz for some delicious and frugal recipes, and boy howdy, have I ever found some GREAT ones! Yowza! So instead of keeping these gems all to myself I figured I'd pass the love along. Here are a few of my finds:

1. Brown rice patties from "Beauty that Moves." I can imagine these with a great big crunchy salad, or on top of a big bowl of Cuban red beans, or even as a quickie breakfast on the run! Delicious. Made them today, and they're so simple -- crunchy on the outside and warm and almost creamy inside! You could seriously do a hundred variations on these. Roasted garlic with some finely chopped greens. Minced jalapeno and cumin seeds with some cheddar. Shredded apples with the shredded carrot and onion. And on and on!

2. Black bean burgers from allrecipes.com. I made these yesterday (a HUGE batch, from dry beans that I cooked in the Crockie, natch) and froze them. Great for lunches. My little tip -- lightly dust with a mix of cornmeal and flour before you fry these up, and you'll avoid the dreaded Disintegrating Veggie Burger Syndrome.

3. Snobby Joes from "Happy Foody." One of my new favorite food blogs -- this is one awesome vegan, dreadlock-sporting, natural-living Christian mama! Snobby Joes are a vegan variation on sloppy joes, obviously -- made of lentils of all things! This is on the list for this week.

You might notice something about these three recipes. They're all vegetarian! Why? Well, first of all, everyone is feeling the economic pinch these days, and one of the quickest ways to alleviate that pinch is to reduce the amount of meat you consume. Just think of how much money you'd save if you cut out meat, which usually costs between $4 and $10 per pound, from your weeknight meals and substituted whole grains, fresh vegetables, eggs, and legumes, like the recipes above!

Secondly, we in the U.S.just eat way too much meat. We're eating from preference and habit, not need. Did any of y’all ever read the "Little House" books? At one point, Pa says to Ma that one of his goals with farming is to get to the point where they can eat beef once a week. Once a week! And we don’t even have to go back that far to see how much our diets have changed! My grandmother could stretch a pound of hamburger into four meals for four people! But nowadays, most of us eat WAY more (mostly meat-based) protein than we need, while failing to get enough health-boosting fiber, vegetables, and fruit. So, for the sake of health, it would be wise to eat less meat so that we can eat more whole grains, vegetables and fruit, right? Right.

And for the sake of space, I won’t even get into the discussion of how factory farming impacts God’s creation. Suffice it to say, growing plants uses much less of the resources of the land than huge feed lots do. If you’d like more info on this aspect of reducing meat consumption, check out THIS great article, from The Baptist Standard, of all places.

Give it a try, will ya? I'm not saying y'all need to become vegans, like, this week or whatever. But why not replace meat with beans or veggies or whole grains just one meal a week? Wherever you are with meat consumption, take just one step toward a more plant-based diet. Your body, and your wallet, will thank you.

Dairy/Non-Dairy

(Or: Adventures With Bacteria!)

Dear Friends,

You are all idiots. Or at least that's what I'm going to tell myself for the purposes of the first part of this post, because it's going to be a pictorial, step-by-step guide to making your very own homemade yogurt, and the only reason anyone would need such a guide is if he or she were an idiot, because it is JUST THAT STINKING EASY, PEOPLE. But humor me.

First. Obtain a crock pot. Place into said crock pot a half-gallon (two quarts, four pints, eight cups) of milk. Any kind you like. Go ahead.

Shout-out to my college dorm neighbor, Jenn, who got two of these as wedding presents and gave me one! Thanks, Jenn!

Turn your crock pot to low. I will demonstrate:

Yet another of my needlessly complicated culinary techniques. Tony Bourdain's got nothin' on me.

Got it? OK. Now, let the milk heat on low for three hours. Then unplug the crock pot.

Sigh... this was so hard, you guys. Maybe it's too difficult for you?

Clear enough? Great. Now, let the milk slowly cool for about three MORE hours.

Now obtain a half-cup of powdered milk. This is not strictly necessary, but it makes the yogurt thicker. And thick is good.

Shut up, I am fully aware that this is a 1/4 cup measure. My half cup was in the dishwasher. So sue me.

A teeny-tiny six-ounce cup of plain, unflavored yogurt, your favorite variety. I happen to luuurve this here Brown Cow cream top kind. It's so delicious it makes my eyes roll back in my head.

I doooooo, cherish yoooooooou...

And stir them together in a bowl with some of the milk from the crock pot, thusly:

Isn't my disgustingly stained rubber spatula... well... disgusting? I blame Indian food. Curse you, turmeric!!

Now. Here comes the tough part. Pour the yogurt mixture back into the milk, and stir it gently. Wrap your crock pot in a great big bath towel (or two, if your house gets really cold at night).

Cozy! (And boy, the edge of that counter's pretty over-exposed, isn't it? Hello, white balance!)

And walk away. That's right. Just walk away. Pretend that crock pot doesn't exist for the next twelve hours, or even the next eighteen hours. And then the next day, unwrap that lovely present, take the lid off, and squeal like a little girl, because you just made homemade yogurt. Put in mason jars or your old yogurt containers, refrigerate, and use within a week.

Ah, hippie-tacular. Homemade yogurt, represent! Woo-wooo!!

Now, for the non-dairy portion of this post. Check out THIS super-simple recipe for homemade almond milk.

"Homemade almond milk, Laura?" you might ask. "I thought almond milk was for, like, weirdo hippie vegans from 1968 who never shave their pits!"

Well, at one time, my friend, I felt the same way that you do. Also, ew.

But I couldn't have been more wrong! You know who almond milk is for? It is for ME, you guys. This stuff is crazy good heated up with a smidge of honey, poured over cereal, as ice cream... mmmmmm.... it's so rich and almondy and creamy, and honestly, how did I ever get to be twenty *mumble mumble* years old without ever tasting this stuff?? It's rockin. PLUS, the ground almonds left over from the almond-milk-making process... well, I'm dreaming of almond macaroons, or some sort of crispy tuile, or a fruit tart with an almond crust? YES!

Now, friends, go and be fruitful and multiply (good) bacteria!

Links!

OK, so I thought I'd put together a links post of my favorite food- and frugality-related blogs for your reference. Umm... great intro, right? Shuddup. Let's just get to it, ok?

FOOD/COOKING:

Last Night's Dinner -- Jenn's beautiful and inspirational dinners, with an occasional post by her cocktail-loving hubby. This blog has really pushed me to seek out good local produce and meats, and to cook with what I have. Not to mention pushing me to put poached eggs on top of EVERYTHING. Poached eggs on toast? Yawn... so pedestrian. Why not... Poached eggs on risotto! Poached eggs on greens! Poached eggs on salad! Poached eggs on beans! Poached eggs on... poached eggs! YES!
CookEatFRET -- Claudia is just a ridiculously great cook and a foodie and a gorgeous dame to boot. She lives in Nashville, and proves that you don't have to live in Manhattan to eat incredibly well. Her recipes are delectable!
101Cookbooks -- Heidi's vegetarian food. More great photos, plus really creative and interesting meatless recipes, which is ideal for those of us trying to shave a few dollars off our grocery bills, eat healthier, and use less of our shared resources.
Smitten Kitchen -- Probably the best food blog on the 'net. What else is there to say?
The Chowhound boards -- An encyclopedic resource, kids. You name it, they've got the answer. I've found answers to some seriously obscure questions... not to mention the general foodie cameraderie. Fun and informative.
The Pioneer Woman -- rated one of Time Magazine's 25 best blogs. Home cooking, stunning photographs, plus some of the funniest writing known to man, put together by a beautiful home-schoolin', church-goin', horse-ridin' rancher's wife.


FRUGALITY and OTHER INSPIRATIONS:

Hillbilly Housewife -- Great, great, great, for folks who are struggling with a recent job loss or otherwise straitened circumstances. She has an emergency weekly menu that'll feed 2 adults and 3 or 4 kids for just $40. It's also a really good place to start if you're new to this whole "frugal living" thing.
Ship Full O'Pirates -- Why did I not know about this fabulous blog until a few weeks ago? One of my main frugality principles is "Question Everything" -- in other words, don't let ANY purchase go by without scrutiny. And this gal has got it together. She's making, not just food from scratch, not just bread, not just cleaning products, but her own laundry detergent, shampoo, and deodorant! Talk about inspirational!
Little House in the Suburbs -- Hello, Gorgeous. Where have you been all my life? This is like the uber-frugality, natural-living, greenie-leaning, DIY NIRVANA, y'all. GO THERE RIGHT NOW. GO! SERIOUSLY, GO!

That's all I got right now.

Coming soon:
Stock!
Frugal recipes
Eating veggie to save big bucks
...and much more!

Food Blogging!!

My friend Kristen came over for dinner tonight, and I made this gorgeous recipe from "A Twist of the Wrist," courtesy of Food and Wine's new website, but discovered (by me) on the lovely Claudia's food blog: Nancy Silverton's lamb meatballs with chickpeas and piquillo peppers.

The original recipe called for lamb, obviously, but being unable to buy good lamb for less than the price of raising a child through college, I opted for ground beef. The verdict? Two very enthusiastic thumbs up. Seriously, it was so flavorful and complex and delicious, and the textures of the chickpeas and the meatballs together -- mmmmmmm... A very big thank you to Claudia for providing the inspiration.

I did make a few subs and additions (duh) since I can't leave well enough alone. I used dry thyme instead of fresh, and added a big heaping tablespoon of lemon zest to the ground meat. I think I also added enough garlic to repel an army of vampires. But it's ok. No handsome men were present at tonight's meal, so we're all good. Actually, no men. At all. I'm not bitter.

A main course this delicious called for a simple but equally delicious dessert. I've been looking for a good way to use up the currants I bought to make hot cross buns, and came across a few recipes for barm brack or tea brack -- fruit-studded Irish sweet breads -- and they were the inspiration for what I eventually came up with: Spiced currant cake. With freshly whipped cream. And a little nutmeg on top. Seriously, somebody stop me before I take over the world with my awesomeness. Did I mention I made up this dadgum recipe?? Because I did.

Oh, you'd like to know how I made it? I thought you'd never ask.

1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup raw (turbinado) sugar
3 eggs
1 T. lemon juice
3/4 c. milk
1 T. lemon zest

2 cups flour
4 t. baking powder
1 scant t. nutmeg
1/2 t. salt

1 c. dried currants

Cream together butter and sugar until very fluffy. Add eggs and beat until frothy, scraping down sides of bowl frequently. Add milk, lemon juice, and lemon zest.

Sift together flour and baking powder and stir in nutmeg and salt. Toss currants in flour mixture. Add to wet ingredients and mix just until moistened, about 30 seconds.

Pour into an 8 x 8 baking pan and bake for 45-55 minutes in a 350 oven, or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean but not dry. Serve with freshly whipped cream and garnish with a sprinkling of nutmeg. Devour. Repeat.

Aren't you glad we don't have to graze like cattle? I sure am. Yay food!

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Michael Pollan's beautiful, sweeping, joyous, practical, intense, inspiring, provocative, stunningly magisterial open letter to the incoming president (whoever he may turn out to be) in the Sunday New York Times Magazine section, all about revolutionizing and returning to our agrarian roots.

It's nine pages long, wordy for a newspaper article, but is so thrillingly visionary that you'll be finished before you know it. Can't recommend it highly enough.

The Omnivore's Hundred

Thanks to Jen at Last Night's Dinner (my absolute favorite food blog -- check it out and you'll see why) for this fun meme, which she got from Very Good Taste. Instructions follow:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding (Sick. Blood and oats in a casing. Wrong.)
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns (Mmmm, my favorite thing in Hong Kong! Char siu bau!)
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes (Like every year since I was born… duh.)
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras (And it had exactly the same texture as the mushroom soup part of green bean casserole. I.e., not good.)
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper (That would just be stupid.)
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters (well… AN oyster, and it was not pleasant. It looks like a loogie floating in dishwater. The texture is the most appalling I’ve ever experienced. Really, there are no words to describe how disturbing it is.)
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly (would it taste like anything except sweet?)
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more (not a crossout, but whisky = yuck)
46. Fugu (Meh. Bourdain said it was boring, and if you can’t trust Bourdain, who can you trust?)
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin (*shudder* Texture!!)
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone (see 50. But I’m curious, because what’s-her-name in Island of the Blue Dolphins ate it all the time)
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (Oh, the shame! But never, ever again.)
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini (Cocktail lovers, turn your heads. I hate gin. It tastes like something you’d remove paint with.)
58. Beer above 8% ABV (Um, duh…)
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips (Unfortunately, and only because Guy Curlee was allergic to chocolate… and everything else.)
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads (Not a crossout, but somebody would have to convince me that they’re just divine, because those things are GLANDS. GLANDS, people!)
63. Kaolin (isn’t that a kind of clay?)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian (No, no, absolutely no. Never. Why would you eat a fruit that smells like feta cheese and ammonia?)
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis (Maybe one bite, on a dare.)
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette (“Chitterlings”? My, my, aren’t we fancy? I believe the correct term is “Chitlins,” y’all.)
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini (I’m not a huge fan of the caviar. Texture thing again, I think.)
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu (I have a weird feeling this wouldn’t be delicious
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant. (Where do I sign up for this?)
85. Kobe beef (Whatever. Trendy foods don’t really do it for me)
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse (I seriously cried when Eight Belles broke her leg at the Derby and had to be put down on the track. I made my parents change the channel so I wouldn’t have to watch her owner, trainer, and jockey sobbing. Do YOU think I’d eat horse?)
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor (Lobster is just a meh for me. Maybe I just haven’t had the superlative lobster, but I dunno… seems like for something so expensive they oughta do the work for you.
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Wow! A lot more than I thought. Now you give it a go... Come on!

Triumph!

At long last, triumph!

The Lord has recently been teaching me humility when it comes to my cooking. I've really taken pride in my culinary ability, but after a long period of failures and semi-failures in the kitchen, I've had three in a row that were total successes. Finally! I'm so excited.

First: White bean soup with Swiss Chard. An invention based on the fact that I wanted soup and had homemade chicken stock, canned cannellini beans (white Italian kidney beans), and a giant bunch of organic Swiss chard on hand. It turned out so luscious and satisfying, not to mention gorgeous.

Second: Russian black rye. I was honestly a bit worried about this one when it came out of the oven -- the crust hadn't set the way I hoped it would, and it felt very heavy! But I sliced into it while still warm, and it was so flavorful and delicious, with a perfect, even, dense texture. The recipe is one from an NPR story about a woman's relationship with her Russian husband's family and the delicious food she learned to make. I did make a couple of minor substitutions (cocoa powder instead of unsweetened chocolate) and omissions (shallot, cumin seed), but followed the recipe with some care otherwise -- a bit unusual for me.

Third: Whole wheat crackers. I'm obsessed with crunchy things (particularly crunchy, sour things... which reminds me that I have kosher dills in my fridge... be right back... mmmm). So I was surfing around allrecipes.com for a good cracker recipe, and found these, a basic-but-tweakable cracker to which I added rosemary, garlic, black pepper, and hot Hungarian paprika, and used olive oil instead of vegetable oil. They turned out savory and snackable -- plus the fact that I chose every ingredient that went into them -- no scary hydrogenated oil, no weird, unpronounceable chemicals.

Whew! I was beginning to doubt myself there for a second!